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Ana-Maria Ciobanu
Word Count: 2100

The Brotherhood
On the bumpy grass between an overgrown field and a
football stadium on the outskirts of Bucharest, 14 men in
red shorts and red T-shirts, most of them in their '30s and
40s, some with pot bellies and receding hairlines, rotate
their heads and hips and shake their ankles and shins.
"Come on, warm up your midriff! You don't want to get
injured!" shouts the player running the warm-up session.
"On my cue, ankle pumps. When I say a number, you
hug. You make a mistake, you do push-ups. Ready! One
by one!"
As the warm-up continues, the men chuckle and make fun
of each other, enjoying the first sunny Saturday in March.
The somewhat motley team is happy. It’s a good feeling
to be on their home field again, playing the game they
love. Their owner, Zamfir Constatin, is on the sidelines,
readying the BBQ for the post game festivities.
Of the 50 players enrolled at Frăția's three teams (two in
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the fourth League and one in the senior championship),

some are former footballers who still want to play, others
played only as children and went back to their old hobby
as grown-ups. They all found a home at Frăția (the team
name mean’s brotherhood). where no one cares if you’re a
flute player in the Bucharest Symphonic Orchestra, like
Catalin Opritoiu, or a Roma day worker like Marin
Florian. What matters is team spirit. A father of x
children, Marin helps the team owner with everything he
can – leveling the field, painting, cleaning the locker
rooms, burning old balls, planting grass seed. In return,
his colleagues always give him used soccer cleats and
shin guards and raise money for his share of the annual
taxes for the Bucharest City Football Association.
It’s March 22, 2015, and team A.S.F. Frăția is getting
ready for their first home game in the fourth league
championship. It’s been a long uphill battle for the team
and owner over the past few years, as they overcame a
series of setbacks and obstacles, to be able to play today
on their home field. But now team Fratia (Brotherhood) is
eager for the game ahead.
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Romanians are football crazy, with more than 120.000

professional players and even more amateurs across the
country. Boys are passionate first about playing in the
schoolyard, then for clubs near their homes, and later
many hope to be selected by official league teams.
Constantin Zamfir, owner of Fratia’s three teams, is no
exception. As a child, he commuted from his parents'
village to Bucharest to be a striker for a third league team.
In the late '80s, he played for second league teams and in
the '90s he became the coach-player of Vulcanul
București, a fourth league team owned by the Vulcanul
plant, a former large manufacturer of industrial tanks.
But after the fall of communism in 1989, the plant was
privatized during the 90’s and the football team disbanded
in 2001. It was then that Zamfir decided to make an old
dream come true; he would start and own his own football
team. He named it Frăția București (“Brotherhood
Bucharest”) in memory of his parents, simple peasants
who had taught their four children to always share what
they had in equal parts. Zamfir sold his modest family
home, and moved with his son and wife into his in-laws,
and used the money to buy the Vulcanul sports field. He
didn't want to see it turned into a mall or left to go to
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waste, the fate suffered by many sports fields in the

country. But following through on his dream to have the
field and a team was not easy, nor was it inexpensive.
Within two years, he found himself in debt.
As owner of the field, the plant that powered the stadium
made him pay for the utilities, an expense he couldn’t
afford at the time, so the power and water supply was cut
off until he could afford an electric generator. He was left
without running water, and had to take a bank loan for
$1,000 to have a well dug. Everything he earned, he
poured back into the stadium or paid off bank loans.
When he ran out of money, he borrowed. Even though he
struggled day and night to raise money – as a taxi driver
and wedding singer – he never thought of quitting. He
wanted Fratia to be a team that could prove that by “being
brothers, you can succeed” and that “sharing the bread is
the only way of being a family”. He decorated the locker-
room with a wide blue banner that says "Forget
animosity, love brotherhood." and welcomed all players,
no matter their age, race or ethnicity. Without actually
planning it, he ended up owning one of the most diverse
teams in the fourth League history.
On the pitch, Zamfir was able to forget about the
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problems of owning a team. Today, at 50, he is still fit -

and competitive, he fights for every goal: He had grown
up on the pitch and it is here that he feels truly alive.
And it was on the field that he discovered goalkeeper
Tudorel in 2013, at a match in the Senior league. He tried
hard to score, but couldn’t and he was so impressed by the
one-armed goalie's talent that he asked him to join his
team. Tudorel had heard of Frăția and had seen Zamfir
around for years, but they had never met.
After visiting their stadium and seeing the team’s
comraderie, Tudorel felt he had found a team close to his
heart. He accepted Zamfir’s invitation.
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At 49, Tudorel’s road to Frăția had not been easy. He had
been born with a malformation in his left arm, which
doctors were forced to amputate from the elbow down.
From the age of 10, Tudorel had begged sports doctors to
give him medical clearance and let him play with one
hand. But in communist Romania people with physical
disabilities were supposed to be hidden from the public,
not featured on sports fields. Finally, at 19 he was given
permission to play on an official team, and he was able to
live his dream and play at the third and fourth league level
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for Romania. Almost 30 years later, he and Zamfir

crossed paths in the senior championship.
Tudorel and Zamfir not only had their love of football in
common, but both believed they could achieve whatever
they set their minds to.
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Everything seemed to be coming together for the team
when it ran into more problems.
In April 2014, a British journalist attended one of Frăția's
matches and wrote an article in the New York Times
about the diversity of the players and the family
atmosphere the owner had created around the team,
including raising chicken and goats near the field, and
having team barbecues after matches and practices.
When the team was subsequently featured in the local
media, the field and locker room was looted, not once but
three times. Vandals stole the electric generator, the lawn
mower, the chickens and the goats. Zamfir believes the
thefts occurred because poor residents of Bucharest had
seen on TV there were things to steal. The owner was
devastated but determined to carry on. Fratia started the
fall championship with no hot water or electricity and as
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the weather got colder and colder, it became harder for

the players to shower with water manually extracted by
Zamfir from the well. After the first snow, they had to
start training on rented fields in order to stay in shape for
the spring official games. Tudorel, Cătălin, Marin and
other 20 players were determined to stay close to the team
and Zamfir, but one of the coaches, Aime Lema, a Congo
national, quit and took some of the younger players with
him. Throughout the winter, the rest of the team trained
whenever they had the money to rent a field and waited
for things to get better.
By early 2015, just as the team was finally getting back
on its feet and looking forward to playing in the spring
championship, they faced yet another obstacle. The
Bucharest City Football Association told Zamfir the team
would not be allowed to play official matches on their
home field unless there was a wire fence around the pitch,
and there was electricity and hot water for the locker-
rooms. Zamfir was tired and had other things on his mind-
his teenage son, who he hoped would follow his footsteps
and keep Fratia going – had heart problems and all the
family’s money was now going to medical care. He had
nothing more that he could offer the team, other than its
name, the field as it was and moral support.
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He rented an indoor field and called a team meeting in

January. 20 men gathered around him in a small locker
room, eager to start playing again. As he looked everyone
in the eyes, and started his speech, Zamfir was nervous
and his cheeks turned red.
- As you know, I gave everything to soccer and I will
continue to do this. My boy collapsed on the field
because of his heart issues. After all our efforts, last
summer’s looting made us lose $4500. I didn’t
complain, I didn’t ask for anything, but luck shined
and a gentleman who heard about the looting called
me and offered to donate and electric generator.
- We don’t need hot water. It might makes us go bold,
joked one of the older players.
But Zamfir was too worried for jokes. He smiled and
carried on.
- We need to know for sure who is still part of this
team and who wants to go on separate ways. No
resentments.
- That’s why we’re here, chief. Because we want to be
part of this team, said several players
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in order to keep the team alive, and be able to play official

matches, each player would have to pay $60 – this would
go paying referees and official observers (mandatory for
official games organized by the Bucharest City Football
Association) but also getting the field fenced satisfactorily
and the locker rooms up to standard.
All 20 players that came to the January meeting rallied to
help keep the organization together, and meet the Football
Association’s criteria. Whether former footballers who
still wanted to play, or dentists, musicians, businessmen,
and teachers –all wanted Frăția to thrive and play official
matches on their home field.
Each team chose a player to keep in touch with the other
players and collect the money. Tudorel was one of the
most committed, and he, along with Catalin the flute
player, scheduled practices, called players to remind them
of the tax, and made loans to those who didn’t have the
money. During this time, Zamfir practiced along with the
team on rented synthetic fields, and worked towards
getting the home field reauthorized.

Slowly, it started to come together. A fan donated a power

generator; Zamfir borrowed $150 to buy a tank to heat
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water in the sun for locker room showers (to save gasoline
money during the summer). Then, with the help of Marin
Florian, he repainted the pitch lines, trimmed the trees on
the sidelines, patched up the fence and painted the locker-
rooms.
Finally, just a few weeks before the start of the spring
championship, the association re-authorized their field,
referees and observers had been paid, and the team was
able to enter the fourth league competition.
One-line space
But their first official game that day in March 2015 had
not gone well. Defeated 4-0, the players huddled on the
sidelines to cheer themselves up. They didn’t want to go
home upset, they wanted to learn something from the
experience and stay together. They had worked so hard.
"That's the best we can do right now."
"Overall, it was OK."
"We'll get them next time!"
Throughout the game, Zamfir had been busy getting the
generators going for the hot water for the showers (it was
too cold for the sun to heat the water), putting juice and
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beer cans in plastic barrels filled with cold water to chill,

and has set up and lit the barbecue in preparation for
grilling mean for the post game barbecue. As far as he is
concerned, it’s not all about winning but it’s the doing the
best you can, especially for the older, overweight players.
He jokes that if he was paying his players, he would have
cut down on their salaries after defeats like the one today.
“We have nothing to win, nor nothing to lose, so let’s
enjoy being out on the field”, is his mantra.
With the players showered and changed, and the pitch
smelling of well-grilled minced meat rolls, Zamfir tears
the bread in equal parts and hands it out to his players
with the meat smeared with mustard and salt. Everyone is
in good humor again, and when the owner starts
improvising a song about the team, the players join in.
The brotherhood carries on.
end